


After the Hunt

by pagerunner



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, e094-e095 Timeskip (Critical Role)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-25 07:38:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12031227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pagerunner/pseuds/pagerunner
Summary: After Vex's foiled attempts to find the baby Grey Render, Percy's doing what he can to comfort and distract her--even if a few things about it all are starting to prey on his thoughts, too. Timeskip fic, based on a prompt over on Tumblr.





	After the Hunt

Devotion, so Percy has been learning and relearning in a myriad of ways, can drive people to extremes.

Watching Vex ever since the Grey Hunt has been illustrative of that point. She has her goals—namely, to find the orphaned Render—and she’s become so focused on righting her own perceived wrongs against it that it’s been difficult to draw her away. For weeks now, her quarry has proven elusive. Some nights Vex returns so dejected, even though she's trying not to show it, that it makes his heart ache with worry. So there’s nothing for it but to distract her upon homecoming with little niceties: a drink already waiting by her bath, a new, soft robe to cuddle into afterward, a fire ready to sit beside and pillows to rest upon while her hair dries (or their hair dries, depending on how participatory the bath becomes on any given evening). And then Percy waits for Vex to tell him whatever she will.

That night, to his surprise, she asks him a question first: “Did you ever hunt here, when you were younger?”

Percy has to think about it. It’s an effort, always, going back to those times when his entire family still lived. “Yes, once or twice, but I was seldom brought along. That honor was mostly left to my older brothers.” She twists her lips briefly but nods. He takes the opportunity to gently comb out a tangle in Vex’s hair. “I had no talent whatsoever for it.”

“Did they ever tell you stories about it?”

“Stories? Not really. They’d brag and boast about anything they brought down, of course. Make a giant show of it. One or two of the heads are still mounted at the castle.” Percy’s memory reaches back. “Julius tried to claim once that he saw something far too large to be a deer, but he was the most prone to exaggeration of any of us. I never gave it much credit, I’m afraid.”

Vex almost forms another question, but she stops. Whether it’s out of reluctance to press him about his family or something else, he can’t tell. Percy sighs, offering what he can. “He was in the western reaches of the Parchwood at the time, if I recall it right. You’ve spent enough time there that if there were anything to find, you’d know. And that was a long time ago.”

“Of course. I was…just wondering. Doesn’t matter.” Vex takes another swallow of her hot toddy. The next question sounds only slightly forced. “So what did you do for fun while he was chasing tall tales?”

Percy, whose hands had stilled, goes back to tending to her hair. He can tell she’s dodging something, but he decides to play along. “Oh…I suppose I was reading, as usual. Sketching. If I did go outside, I was more apt to go looking for old historical sites or geological oddities. Like fossils, up on the Suncrest Slope.”

That at last gets her attention. “Fossils? Of what?”

“Sea creatures, mostly. The waters here used to reach much higher.” He straightens out one last little snarl, then sets the comb aside and runs his fingers through her hair instead. It’s beginning to dry in the radiant heat. The gesture seems to calm her, too, so he keeps up the stroking pattern. “Once I chipped out a shard of whitestone that had the shape of a shell imprinted into it. It had such perfect, intricate coils. Father took that one, though. He said the arcanists might find it useful.”

“I would have liked to have seen that.”

“I would have liked to have _kept_ it. I’d also rather have skipped getting punished for wandering off the safe path and risking getting killed by falling rocks, but, well.” Percy smiles crookedly, his hand dropping to her shoulder. “That’s how things usually went for me at the time.”

Vex ponders her drink again, but sets it aside. “Sounds like he was about as much fun as my father. He never approved when Vax and I went exploring, either.”

“And what did you find?”

She looks distant for a second before she smirks. “Trouble, mostly.”

Percy smiles, too, and tugs her closer. She follows right along, pillowing her head on his bare chest. He’d only put on a pair of lightweight cotton pants after the bath, and now he’s distinctly aware of all the textures around him: the silk pillows, Vex’s luxurious robe, her soft hair against his skin. He reaches up to touch her cheek, warm now from being turned toward the fire.

He’s still getting used to these casual little intimacies, but here in Vex’s mostly finished mansion, it feels appropriately private. It feels safe, insofar as anything involving people like them can ever be _safe_. He lets his touch wander a little. Vex hums low in her throat, approving.

“Someday you’ll have to tell me about what you got up to out there,” Percy says, and if he were being honest, he’d have to admit he meant more than just Vex’s long-ago hijinks. But he’s not going to get far with that line of questioning tonight, he can tell. Vex’s grin is turning downright mischievous, and when she gets up and turns, she settles right into his lap, with her arms draped over his shoulders.

Percy’s temperature immediately climbs several degrees for reasons that have nothing to do with the fire.

“Right now,” she tells him mock-seriously, “I think I’m done with storytelling.”

“Are you?”

“Yes. Because I’m more interested in what kind of trouble _we_ can get up to.”

“Mmh. That’s…an entirely valid topic of discussion, I agree.”

“I didn’t say we had to _discuss_ it, though, did I?”

Percy laughs. It’s entirely too easy after that sort of question to reach up, first stroking one hand over her clothed body and watching her react to it, then slipping one hand beneath the robe. Vex makes a pleased little noise, wriggling into the pressure of his palm. Percy’s breath hitches. Lower down, his blood pounds.

Then she kisses him for quite some while, which does neatly curtail all attempts at discussion. So does her hand pulling off what little clothing he has left. And when she slides down, smirks up at him, and puts her mouth to work on other parts of his anatomy entirely, Percy has to concede that _talking_ any longer would have been a deadly boring way to spend the evening, by comparison.

It’s not until he’s too deep in the afterglow to do anything about it that the idea flits across his mind: _I was trying to distract her…and all night, she’s been distracting me._

He wonders faintly what she didn’t tell him about that evening’s hunt. What kind of questions she’d really wanted to have answered. But he still doesn’t know what else to give her, and sleep is creeping up on him besides, so he goes along with her urgings to get comfortable. He only thinks for a little while how much the last few crackles of the fire sound like steps through dried leaves, or hooves moving through the underbrush. How the sparks look just like light in a mysterious creature’s eyes. How the smell of the wood is still all around them, one way or another.

But it makes him hold tight to Vex, and he hopes she’s not dwelling on those things herself—and that the space they share between them is enough, that the pleasures are real and the comfort true, and that her dreams stay clear enough this time that she won’t disappear into the woods again tomorrow, searching for something far beyond his grasp.


End file.
